I was one of Hogans Heroes
by HoganTime
Summary: Hogans Heroes write about their view on war, humanity and resistance. Third Chapter up: Peter Newkirk
1. Andrew Carter

None of the characters in Hogans Heroes belong to me (as usual), I´m borrowing them, to write this (and many other) stories, for fun, not profit. This story is a little different from those I wrote before. I intend to mix the reality a bit more with the fun parody we all know so well. This story shall become a sequence of small essays, each presenting the view of a specific character from Hogans Heroes on the war, after the war.

This first piece is written by "Andrew Carter". My other story "As time goes by" will continue as soon as I´ve got the time (and ideas) to continue it, I apologize for the waiting time.

I apologise for any mistakes in spelling, grammar or historical events, most of this was written out of my memory and the story has not been beta-read. What I also want to add is, that I have not been in World War II. When it started, I was minus fourty-nine, that´s a lot of time. I am imagining the feelings and thoughts in this story, combined with what I know, what I think and what people of my age often say or think about this topic.

Now enough of this, let Andrew Carter begin:

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I was one of Hogans Heroes**

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Part I: Andrew Carter 

I think this should have been written earlier, honestly, but there was no time, no time and no place in the world for this piece of writing. Who is interested anyway in the thoughts of someone who lived sixty years ago, someone who is yet a human being, albeit in a time so far away. I am the last of Hogans Heroes, yes Hogans Heroes, because without him, neither this piece of writing nor I myself would have existed in this time.

For me, Andrew Carter, this essay will be the last final step towards closing off the chapter of the second world war, a war about which some people wrote that since then, the world has never been the same again.

I believe this is true, never before had cruelty been so specific, had organisation entered into the cruelty of extinction. Extinction, yes, I use this term explicitly, because that was what Adolf Hitler intended, to wipe out the Jews and with them, many others, then deemed unworthy to live.

To you, dear reader, living in the twenty-first century this may seem absurd, the whole idea a dream, no nightmare of a madman, yet for us, it was real, very real at that time. Every event in the past, even if it´s no more than a phrase in your history textbook meant more than that, at that time. You might read Wannsee Konferenz 20.01.1942. For you, it´s just another number, which you will have to learn for your next exam. I won´t and can´t blame you for this, but you should realise, that at this conference was planned the murder of thousands, no millions of innocent people, people with families, people with friends, people living their lives, just like you do.

Do you have to know this? A question, which seems al to legitimate. I asked myself this question time after time, when I was still at school. Now, as an old man, as someone who has witnessed one of history´s darkest hours, I say, yes, you need to know it. Why? So that you recognise the signs, when they are first clearly to be seen.

History can be viewed in many different ways. You can see it as a never ending stream of disaster, one fatal human mistake following another. Remember, that we, who lived before did not know, what you know now. Knowing afterwards is a lot easier, than knowing in advance.

Another way to view history is, as a chain of glorious achievements. I do not like any of these views, I support the mixture, which is also the third way. History is human, errors are also human. Yet invention is also human, so why not combine those two to a more complete view of our world, of our past.

I´m getting philosophical, I know. Some of you may already think of clicking this away, just to not be bothered by it´s contents any more. The critical point is, you should be bothered. Everybody should be bothered by the fact, that human beings like ourselves, most of them, did nothing to prevent the Holocaust, did nothing to prevent the Germans from imprinting their stamp of Nazism on the majority of Europe.

Of course there has been resistance, yet resistance was small. Most people chose the easiest way out. They did not join the Nazi party, so were not guilty of its crimes, but neither did they prevent those crimes and so became guilty of them. They chose to do nothing, but continue their lives.

I think, this is the most likely response. As long as something does not affect you, why risk your life to prevent it? I recently read a war poem, which summarises this feeling nicely. It describes the feelings and thoughts of one person, basically saying, they came for the Jews, I did not do anything because I was not Jewish. They came for the young men, and I did not speak up, because I was not young. This continues, until it reaches the conclusion: and then they came for me, and there was nobody to speak up for me.

This portrays the majority of people nicely, I think. Yet there were some, who put their lives on the line for others, sometimes with not much chance for succes.

Let me call an example. The „Weiße Rose", around Munich. A group of students, all in their early, or mid twenties. They printed articles and essays against the Nazi party, to convince the students that the Nazis were going the wrong way. In the end, they were caught and sentenced to death. What drove these young people, with a whole life ahead of them to do a thing like this?

The reason I think is that they believed in their cause. They believed that they were right and in our view, they were right, yet in their time, they appeared to be not and were sentenced to death for it.

It is interesting to view a case like this, because lots of people claimed that they were too young to understand, too young to realise what was going on. But what is it, that Adolf Hitler´s secretary says in an interview sequeling „Der Untergang"? She says that youth is no excuse, no excuse for not seeing cruelty.

I was one of Hogans Heroes, yes, I was young too. But had I existed at that time, in reality, would I have been as brave as I was at Stalag13?


	2. Robert Hogan

Another piece of thought, this time taken from the mind of Robert Hogan. I do not own any of the characters, I am imagining how they felt and how they would speak about certain topics.

Robert Hogan will tell you a story about command, luck, chance and ideology. As I said before, I have not seen what World War 2 was like, I can only imagine. I hope no one takes offence at this piece of writing, remember, these are my ideas, you don´t have to believe them or agree with them.

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**_Part II: Robert Hogan_**

I was Papa Bear, I am Papa Bear still. Some people saw me as the most important man in Hogans Heroes, after all we were named **Hogans **Heroes. This is my story, the story of command, of luck and chance and ideology.

Command meant more in those days than being the most important man, than being in power. Command meant and, for me, still means responsabillity, for those that you command. A lot of people forget this, time after time, I could not forget, then, back at Stalag 13.

The most difficult decisions were made in the last days of the war, when people fought and died around us, while we had to sit back and wait, wait and do nothing but help men escape, knowing that our brothers, our friends were dying on the beaches of France, dying in the countries, yet to be freed.

Once in a while I had to play God, God for no man could accomplish everything we wanted. Still, I cannot find the words to express my grief to those families, who lost their sons, because we were not able to help them, to express my sadness at our unabillity to help the allied officers and soldiers alike, murdered during the last days of the war, when the end and freedom were so near.

For many it came too late, I survived, only because Klink was no Nazi, because Klink was one of a kind, because Klink was still alive, I am alive today, to tell the story of command, of grief, the burden of responsabillity and especially the guilt about being alive while more than 20 million soldiers, 17 million civilists were killed.

Why am I alive? Why me, while it could have been anyone else? Luck, pure luck. In the end, I was lucky to end up in a POW camp, especially, because this camp was Stalag 13. I cannot understand luck, nobody can, I guess. Luck jumps back and forth between people, leaving, when most needed and in the end, coming to the rescue. Luck and chance. I never liked those aspects of life, because they were never predictable.

Luck, chance and love. Love and admiration were what kept me and the others alive. Love, for each other, admiration for each others work.

I was Papa Bear, but I would not have been Papa Bear without the others. Remember that. Alone, you can do amazing things, but most things are done together, because two are one brain more than one.

I never wanted others to save my life while risking theirs. They did and in the end, I am grateful that they did. It is strange. People do not want to die, but less do they want others to die for them. This to is a way of love, I suppose.

A last thing I wanted to say is about ideologies. Those numbers I recalled in an earlier paragraph: 20 million soldiers, 17 million civilians. They are estimates, but they are but a number, but a representation of how large this war was. How many lives it ruined, how much suffering it made. And why? Because of the dream, the horrifying dream of someone, who cannot be considered a madman. No madman would act in this way, no madman would be systematic in the realization of his visions. It was even more dangerous than being mad. It was belief. Belief that his ideology was right, his belief the only thing worthwhile. All those people, children, adults were sacrificed on the altar of an ideology, not on the altar of madness.

Hitler was not mad, I don´t think so. He was „enlightened" by a vision and he pulled many people with him, like „leaders" all over the world do. Saying that Hitlers ideas were just mad is an underestimate of their danger, for it could happen again. Ideology is different from madness in the way, that madness can be recognized by people as not behaviour that is normal. An ideology has gone far beyond this point. It is an idea, that seems not only persuasive, but also attracting to some people and herein lies its danger.

In this persuasion, this deception of a massive amount of people lie the roots of fascism, fundamentalism and every other form of intolerance against other peoples views, lifes and nationality. Freedom of thought is one of the most precious things we have, remember this. Taking this away is no sign of a renewal of dignity, it is a sign of darkness spreading, of intolerance forcing its way into the hearts of people.

The claim, that sometimes a country needs a dictator to turn it into a democracy is not true, can never be true, because a government built upon a thirst for power and gain, built upon fear and oppression can never make the right decisions. A government, that imposes its system, its way of thinking on not only his own country, but extends this to other countries too, claiming to free them is as dangerous as a government led by a dictator.

Ideology is no solution. Ideology in the sense of a dogma is no solution I mean to say. Thinking and deciding is the way. Not voting is a way to give extremist minorities power, not thinking is a way to give extremist thoughts power. Democracy may not seem ideal at all times, but remember its the best we have. Other systems have not worked and will not work, we have seen from the past. I hope, sincerely that we can learn from this past, so that gas chambers, atomic bombs and gulags will never be put into work again

As much fun as war seems to be in the much commented television series, life was different then, and difficult as well. War is no joke and it is certainly not a movie. It is the most bitter reality.

Remember then, we and all the soldiers with us did not know, what was going to happen, lived in uncertainty about even our own future. Nobody could predict what would happen to the allied soldiers, when the allied forces were coming closer and closer. Nobody knew, how desperate the German leaders would be, desperate to kill even helpless POWs.

People say the Holocaust will never happen again, because it was a crime of the Nazis. Others say the Germans are to blame. Maybe Asians would say Europeans did it all. In the end, people committed these crimes, regardless of nationality. They were ordinary people like you and me, remember that.


	3. Peter Newkirk

Thanks for the reviews!

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**_Part III: Peter Newkirk_**

Many of you know Peter Newkirk as the one who could crack every safe, pick every lock and pocket. Because of this, I am writing this piece today. It is about crime, about the relativity of crime when measured on the meter of morality.

For me, picking locks and pockets was a way of life, even before the war. In Stalag 13 it became even more a matter of survival. But was it right to do this? Is crime relative to the situation?

Moral is a very ambigiuous word. For me moral is a given set of values, agreed to by the majority of humanity. These values are the codex for respect. Acting in conflict with these values is seen as bad and so the respect of people for your acts will decrease. Those moral values are also a set of rules for survival. Without them, without a moral you cannot survive in our community.

Giving as much as taking is one of the underlying principles of this moral. If you do not adhere to the values of moral, you cannot expect others to do so. So, if you do not want to be punched in the face in the middle of the street for nothing, you shouldn´t do so either.

This concept of moral is a simplistic one, but it works in normal circumstances. Don´t do to other people, what you don´t want them to do to you. Does not sound ambiguous, does it?

The ambiguity of moral comes into play when we reach the boundaries of its set of values. Moral concepts are agreed on (although not conscious) in times of peace, by people who don´t have to fear that they´ll die of hunger, thirst or bombings the next day, or even the next hour, the next minute. This fact makes morals boundaries quite clear.

What happens to moral values, when abnormal things happen? Suddenly moral values seem to have been made of rubber. All of a sudden I, as a soldier am allowed to shoot, murder, other people. In times of famine, stealing food becomes common. When one has to fear for its own life, moral values are overtaken by the instinct for self-preservation.

What happened to the moral values? Did they vanish? No, they did not, the values are still there, represented by for example the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention. How come not everyone adheres to them in times of war?

It is the problem, that is strongly connected with the ideologies Colonel Hogan talked about earlier. Ideologies introduce a kind of holiness and cleanliness into a group that believes in and follows this ideology. Everyone else is not worth mentioning anymore, because he disagrees or does not fit into the holiness of ideology.

This process is embedded in every ideology, even in our own want for democracy. Think about it, what do you think of dictatorships? The fact that you might think that a dictatorship is not the right thing represents this unholiness of everything outside the own frame of mind. But, as Colonel Hogan said democracy is the best system we have up to now.

This process then, the sanctification of a way of thinking is ultimately dangerous, because it is a small step from preferring ones way of thought over another one to truly disdain the other way of thinking. When this second step comes into action, it is but another small step to say that the believers in everything else than your ideology are inhuman and irrational.

Now we have got the underlying danger. When someone is not human, the human concepts of moral values do not apply to him. When an enemy soldier is no other human, but a swine, he is no POW, so the Geneva Convention does not apply to him anymore. This is the way, that athrocities are made possible, even with the sense for morality intact.

Is it thus right to treat enemy soldiers as inhuman? Of course not, because they are human, albeit with a different ideology. Again, ideology plays a strong role in a sense for right and wrong.

We have explored now, how moral values can be bent out of way, without feelings of guilt, by ideology. The fact that we can state a theory for the reason why athrocities are comitted does not make them excusable of course. The fact that something can be explained in a logical way is not a way of making this fact logical, or even wanted. Between the ideology and the athocity itself are always people, people with a moral judgement of their own. Responsabillity is not a matter of explanation, it is a matter of ones own judgement.

Now, what about stealing food in times of famine? Ask some people, what they would do, if a relative of them was starving to death and the only way of saving him or her is to steal food. What would they do, steal the food or let the relative die?

In this case, two moral conflicts are coming into play. One is about stealing, the other about letting someone die when you are able to prevent it. It is a matter of which conflict is stronger. Most people, I think would feel that the second option is in greater conflict with their moral sense than the first one.

So, by conflict of two or even more moral values, some can be bent to prevent another infraction of the moral values from happening. It is another sign, that in the human mnd, moral values are not made of stone. They are made of rubber, able to be bent in certain directions, by certain situations.

When the danger of dying of hunger concerns oneself, this to can be seen as a conflict of two moral values, albeit one is deeper rooted into ourselves, than the other. The sense that stealing is not right is one, that developed in the evolutionairy history with the existence of cooperative groups. Before that time, individuals existed (although they may or may not have been human), whose only desire was the desire to survive. This desire is preserved in us, to the present day.

In the given example, the drive for self-preservation is stronger than the moral conflict of stealing. Again, the moral value that stealing is wrong, is being bent out of the way.

All of this, relates to our situation at Stalag 13. We did many things, which were in conflict with human moral values. Of these, stealing some papers out of a safe were the least, I believe. We killed, murdered, all five of us. When we sent another map to London, concerning another munitions factory, we sentenced tens of guards to death. When we blew up a factory, people died.

We tried to minimise these losses, everyone does, but for us, the moral values we were violating when we killed people for the „greater good" (oh what a hollow word it is), we believed that what we were doing was a smaller conflict with our moral values than letting the Germans proceed making munition, tanks, bombs.

We valued our own countrymens lives higher than those of the Germans and we knew it, but we thought it was necessary. It is another example of our ideology, the ideology, that prevails to the present day. I can only ask one thing. Keep an eye on ideologies and on your own sense of right and wrong. Understanding your own emotions is the only key to understand the emotions and drives of the people around you.

Understanding yourself is the only way to prevent new athrocities. Ask yourself time after tim, if what you are doing is really the right thing and when you´ve got an answer to this question, ask why, and so on.

„Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." (Isaac Asimov)  



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